Mistake
by Simply Look Around
Summary: It was a mistake. Honest. Petunia never meant to kill her nephew. Ghost Harry. Begins graphic.
1. Prologue

Mistake:

It was a mistake. Honest. Petunia never meant to kill her nephew. Ghost Harry. Begins graphic.

-/-start-/-

It was an early morning a few weeks into school break when Petunia and Vernon Dursley received a phone call that his sister, Marge, had been admitted to the hospital due to a heart attack. Their son, Dudley, had been sent two days prior for a summer camp with a few of his friends from school. Their nephew, Harry, had been tucked away in the boot cupboard under the stairs.

Hastily, Petunia shoves a cup of water in the cupboard with a bucket, hurrying upstairs before the eight year old had a chance to awaken. She hurriedly packed their bags, knowing they would be staying near the hospital for a day or two before returning. Vernon, gruff and impatient, calls that he would be waiting in the car, the boot already open to receive the bags.

With a hasty slam of the car doors, the two were speeding off down the road.

Inside the house, eight year old Harry woke to the sound of the front door slamming. His small cot was damp on one corner from an overturned glass of water. Harry thought this a shame; he had not been out in several days. For a moment, he ponders trying his tricks, but after he turned his teacher's hair blue, he thought it best not to anger his relatives.

Deciding to conserve his energy, Harry sleeps.

Outside a few hours later, a sputtering occurs, and the air conditioner faithfully cooling the home gives a few last clunks before turning off. In the unusual summer heat, the house becomes stifling and under the stairs more so.

Harry is thirsty. His mouth is dry like sandpaper, and his stomach long since had stopped growling. He was sticky with sweat and felt weak.

All he really wanted to do was sleep.

And sleep he did, for several days until his heart stopped beating.

Petunia enters the house five days after she leaves, intent on getting more clothes for herself and Vernon as they played to stay with Marge while she recovered. Opening the front door to the house, her nose is hit with the most pungent scent she had ever encountered, as well as a stifling heat.

Swallowing, she sees a reddish brown liquid seeping from beneath the cupboard door and onto the floor of her hall. Shutting the front door behind her, she drops the bags and moves over to the cupboard, frantically opening it only to give a wordless scream.

In front of her is the decomposing corpse of her nephew, covered in rats and insects.

She panics.

She had not meant for this to happen. She had honestly forgotten about the boy. She had never wanted the boy.

With shaking hands, she gathered supplies. She was a wife and a mother. She had a family. She was not going to do something foolish.

Meticulously, she covered herself, placing on her dish gloves and gathering garbage bags and bleach. She shoed off the rats, making note to call an exterminator later. She whimpered as she picked up the pieces of the body, cringing at the insects.

It was several hours later, once everything from the cupboard is in two double bag garbage bags and the cupboard doused in bleach that she takes a step back.

The smell is gone to chemicals, and it is still obnoxiously hot. Her hair is plastered to her sweaty forehead, and her cheeks streaked with dried tears. Her eyes go back to the garbage bags, and she wonders how to dispose of them before concluding the least suspicious thing to be putting them out for the garbage in the morning.

The next morning, Petunia does exactly that and drives back to her husband with shaking hands.

She never realizes that all of the child's blood seeping into the floors and confused the blood wards. She never notices the baby teeth left in the cracks of the wood in the cupboard, or the rats that took the bones of fingers and toes to the sewers. Never realized the implications of a magical child's bones.

Adult wizards and witches needed a purpose to stay beyond death, unfinished business. Magical children simply did not realize what had happened to them and did not know better than to move own, so many families cremated the bodies. For any physical trace was enough to bring a spirit back.

It is hours after that she leaves that her nephew appears in his cupboard, pulling his translucent hand through the door repeatedly in curiosity.

He would find later the ability to visit the places were a piece of him resides. He would find later that his relatives could not see him, no matter if he would turn on and off the water or television.

And, he would not know until years later why no one could see him. Not until the professors at Hogwarts come to see why no quill would address a letter for little Harry Potter.

-/-

Slightly odd. I just had this thought about fifteen minutes ago, and it kept nagging at me.

I may continue, but for right now it is complete. I just had this weird thought of a friendly ghost Harry that could go wherever his bones were, and no one realizing until later. I thought if it continued, it could be morbidly humorous.


	2. Baby Steps

Posted 22 March 2017

I am taking liberties with what I believe magical ghosts can do, and I am drawing from several different ideas for them, like Harry Potter, Casper, and Supernatural. I am also taking the idea of Harry being eight. He doesn't understand some concepts yet, and it will come with time. He can grow intellectually, but he was always be eight.

I am open to suggestions and ideas.

-/-start-/-

It is very quiet beneath the stairs.

Inside the cupboard, a translucent figure sits with his knees curled up to his chest. His messy hair falls in front his eyes, and he reaches up to brush it back. With a huff, he frowns at the darkness, nose wrinkling before relaxing as the light bulb flicks on.

He never used to be able to do that.

He has been in the cupboard for a few weeks now and had noticed his new ability to move through walls. The only problem is he is not sure if he is allowed to go out.

He is not stupid. He is eight… was eight. He knows he's dead. He knows he's a ghost. The teachers at school let him wear a ghost costume last year for Halloween when he did not show up in one. So, he knew what a ghost was.

The only issue is that someone has always told him what to do.

This is freedom, and he really is not sure how to act.

Did he haunt things? How would he do that? Was there some sort of protocol to being undead? And, why didn't he move onto wherever his parents went? Why is he still in his cupboard?

Idly, he runs his fingers over the stained wood floor of the cupboard. Underneath the floorboards was a stash of his baby teeth. After the tooth fairy did not come when he lost them, he always kept them beneath the lose floorboard. Though, with a squint, he sees one in the corner that wasn't hidden beneath the floor.

Rats must have moved it.

Underneath is also his toy soldier collection, something his cousin had thrown away when boredom hit. And, he really understood his cousin now. He wanted to do something. Anything. But, he could not figure out how to get his toy soldiers unstuck yet. He learned how to turn on the light, but this was harder. The spoon he used to have in here to pry up the board was gone.

Another huff escapes him. It was unnecessary breath, more of a motion than anything, but lately that is what he had been doing. Huffing in frustration and boredom. Unfortunately, it was a habit he picked up from his aunt.

Maybe, he thought, he could go outside the cupboard? It is not like anyone had opened it in awhile, and he did not even have to open the door.

He had never been very brave, but he is dead now. Maybe it is time to take the chance.

Hesitantly, he sticks his head through the door, looking around the dark hall and hearing no movement. Slowly the rest of his body follows until he is standing in the hall looking at ticking clock on the wall that says it is close to four in the morning.

He is still bored.

For a while, he sits above the couch in the living room, taking great joy in the fact he never was allowed to do that before. But, it only last for a few minutes, and he tries to turn on the television like he did with the light.

He is still trying when his aunt makes her way down stairs to make breakfast.

He had not seen her in awhile, and she is thinner than what he remembered, with dark bags beneath her eyes.

"You don't look so good, Aunt 'Tunia," he states to himself, moving over and floating upwards to sit on the counter as she gathered ingredients from the cupboard and refrigerator. He watches her shiver as she sets something through him, and he frowns. It slowly pulls into a smile.

Maybe this is a good thing. She cannot see or hear him. Maybe this is his chance to say all he wants, like his cousin.

So, he rambles as she works, talking for the first time in ages, more than he ever had the chance to before. And, when his uncle and cousin come to the table as breakfast is served, they cannot see or hear him either.

He is quickly distracted, though, as his cousin turns on the television. He sits down in the empty seat at the table, entrapped by the show. He had never got to watch it before, not really, only through the cracks of his cupboard.

For several hours, he watches alongside his cousin various shows like Thundercats, He-man, Scooby Doo, and the Pink Panther. His favorite, by far though, is the reruns of Batman and Robin.

It takes many evenings practicing until he is able to make the television turn on so he could keep watching.

A few weeks later, the Dursley family is away from the house, on a trip planned months ago to the coast. And, he is once again left bored.

He had gotten used to following his aunt around as she did work and watching television with his cousin and reading the paper over his uncle's shoulder. Now that no one was there, it was just a quiet, empty house.

But, if he could leave the cupboard, why could he not leave the house?

With the slightest bit of hesitation, he floats out the front door and sits on the front step of the house, watching the people work outside and the kids ride their bikes.

It had been a few rare sunny days at the end of summer, but soon clouds were covering up the sun and it started to drizzle. For a while, he is content to sit and watch as people gathered back inside their homes, but he then sees his favorite cat sitting across the street. A smushed faced black and white cat that he had played with whenever Ms. Figg babysat him. Smiling, he starts to go towards it, but he runs into a wall at the end of the yard.

Frowning, he pushes against it. It felt solid. Nothing had felt solid in weeks. Huffing, he sits at the edge and watches the cat, waving his fingers at it.

To his surprise, the cat follows his fingers before making its start across the street.

"Can you see me, Oreo?"

The look the cat gives him is almost a glare. He grins happily; sure the cat could see him. Though, he wondered why it could. None of the other animals, cats and dogs, seemed to notice him. It would be a long time till he would know the cat as a magical animal, a kneazle.

He watches as Oreo crosses the street, taking her delicate time moving around the forming puddles.

And, then promptly watches as a speeding car does not see the cat, and a yowl pierces through the air as Oreo is flung the remaining way across the street and into his yard.

Hurriedly, he moves beside the lifeless cat, trying to press his fingers over the fur, but his hands merely pass through the cat.

Little did he know that his presence stopped Oreo's soul from moving on, confused at the presence of magical ghost and tying the cats soul to that of a young boy.

He sits beside the still body for many hours, hugging his knees to his chest as the first person, cat, to see him in so many weeks experienced death by vehicular cat-slaughter.

He looks down as he _feels_ something rough against his fingers. And, that is a marvel on its own, as he has not felt something in quite a while. But, the greater marvel is the translucent form of Oreo, little wet nose nudging his hand.

He indulges the feline, petting the thick fur with awe.

The rain continues to pour around them long after Ms. Figg finds the body of her deceased cat, taking her back to bury with wrenching sobs as she mutters about 'stupid muggle vehicles.'

He merely thinks that now he has a companion to play with. Looking down at the cat, he states quite seriously.

"Oreo, we are going to play Batman. You're Catwoman, and I'm Robin, okay?"

-/-

So, this is more of an introduction into ghost Harry as he adapts to being undead. Ignore any typos or errors. I don't proofread, I just type and post.

Let me know if your thoughts or ideas.


End file.
